> I was thinking of an upload in the form of an artificial computer simulation.
> That would allow us to be free from physical restraints. As opposed to
> augmenting our interaction with the physical world.
Apart from the fact that I'd love to see a _natural_ computer simulation:
please observe that the infrastructure supporting you is still located in
the real, physical world. An efficient spatially distributed system will
still let implementation-layer relativistic constraints shine through
(while reading teledesic http://www.teledesic.com info , I was thrilled
that GEO latency considerations rule out req/ack comm loop of most
protocol, while LEO gives fibrelike latency). (<bluesky>Intrinsic
nonlocality of most QM theories & similiar constraints for the hypothetic
simulated universe assuming, this would indicate that the machine running
us exists in a pretty high-dimensional space</bluesky>). Anyway, most
people criticizing uploader wannabes as world-weary aesthete solipsists
bark up an entirely wrong tree, when talking about pulling the plug. If
anything, we are going to shut them down, not vice versa. Unless
transcension is a really real possibility, atoms for circuitry are a
scarce resource. Somebody might come and want both the ground your tread
on, and your body for reaction mass and circuitry. Better be careful.
Things as smart and fast... you won't even knew what had hit you.
ciao,
'gene
P.S. It seems the "bulk of terrestrial water being of extraterrestrial
origin/Earth barraged by ice fragments" hypothesis is not quite as firmly
established as I'd liked it to see (free water in space! Let's pack up
things and move.). Similiar things apply to maximicroturbines. So I guess
things from Back to the Future * are not quite around the corner. Btw, had
a long walk around Munich today, tried to view large civilization
artefacts, and particulary, their installation rate from a neolithicum
denizen point of view. Came back home pretty impressed, as things seem to
have started moving visibly, and ours is not a particularly exciting patch
of the world. While not a matter of decades, the Spike imminent appears to
be a very real possibility.